Preface: The Chang'e-3 lander and rover mission to the Moon

The Chang＇e-3 （CE-3） lander and rover mission to the Moon was an in- termediate step in China＇s lunar exploration program, which will be followed by a sample return mission. The lander was equipped with a number of remote-sensing instruments including a pair of cameras （Landing Camera and Terrain Camera） for recording the landing process and surveying terrain, an extreme ultraviolet camera for monitoring activities in the Earth＇s plasmasphere, and a first-ever Moon-based ultravi- olet telescope for astronomical observations. The Yutu rover successfully carried out close-up observations with the Panoramic Camera, mineralogical investigations with the VIS-NIR Imaging Spectrometer, study of elemental abundances with the Active Particle-induced X-ray Spectrometer, and pioneering measurements of the lunar sub- surface with Lunar Penetrating Radar. This special issue provides a collection of key information on the instrumental designs, calibration methods and data processing pro- cedures used by these experiments with a perspective of facilitating further analyses of scientific data from CE-3 in preparation for future missions.

Lunar Penetrating Radar onboard the Chang'e-3 mission

Lunar Penetrating Radar （LPR） is one of the important scientific instru- ments onboard the Chang＇e-3 spacecraft. Its scientific goals are the mapping of lunar regolith and detection of subsurface geologic structures. This paper describes the goals of the mission, as well as the basic principles, design, composition and achievements of the LPR. Finally, experiments on a glacier and the lunar surface are analyzed.

Reflectance calibration and shadow effect of VNIS spectra acquired by the Yutu rover

Yutu is the first lunar rover after the Apollo program and Luna missions. One of the payloads on the Yutu rover, the Visible and Near-infrared Imaging Spectrometer （VNIS）, has acquired four VIS/NIR images and SWIR spectra near its landing site in Mare Imbrium. The radiance images were reduced through repairing bad lines and bad points, and applying flat field correction, and then were converted into reflectance values based on the solar irradiance and angles of incidence. A significant shadow effect was observed in the VIS/NIR image. The shadowed regions show lower reflectance with a darkening trend compared with illuminated regions. The re- flectance increased by up to 24% for entire images and 17% for the VIS/NIR-SWlR overlapping regions after shadow correction. The correction for the shadow effect will remarkably decrease the estimate of FeO content, by up to 4.9 wt.% in this study. The derived FeO contents of CD-005-008 after shadow correction are around 18.0 wt.%.

High precision landing site mapping and rover localization for Chang'e-3 mission

This paper presents the comprehensive results of landing site topographic mapping and rover localization in Chang’e-3 mission.High-precision topographic products of the landing site with extremely high resolutions(up to 0.05 m)were generated from descent images and registered to CE-2 DOM.Local DEM and DOM with 0.02 m resolution were produced routinely at each waypoint along the rover traverse.The lander location was determined to be(19.51256°W,44.11884°N,-2615.451 m)using a method of DOM matching.In order to reduce error accumulation caused by wheel slippage and IMU drift in dead reckoning,cross-site visual localization and DOM matching localization methods were developed to localize the rover at waypoints;the overall traveled distance from the lander is 114.8 m from cross-site visual localization and 111.2 m from DOM matching localization.The latter is of highest accuracy and has been verified using a LRO NAC image where the rover trajeactory is directly identifiable.During CE-3 mission operations,landing site mapping and rover localization products including DEMs and DOMs,traverse maps,vertical traverse profiles were generated timely to support teleoperation tasks such as obstacle avoidance and rover path planning.

Geologic characteristics of the Chang'E-3 exploration region

We present topographic, geomorphologic and compositional characteristics of a l°×l° （-660 km2） region centered near the landing site of Chang＇E-3 using the highest spatial resolution data available. We analyze the topography and slope using Digi- tal Terrain Model （DTM） generated from Terrain Camera （TC） images. The exploration region is overall relatively flat and the elevation difference is less than 300 m, and the slopes of 80% area are less than 5~. Impact craters in the exploration region are classified into four types based on their degradation states. We investigate the wrinkle ridges visible in the exploration region in detail using TC and Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter （LRO） Narrow Angle Camera （NAC） images. We calculate FeO and TiO2 abundances using Multispectral Imager （MI） data, and confirm two basaltic units： the northern part belongs to Imbrian low-Ti/very-low-Ti mare basalts, and the southern part is Eratosthenian low-Ti/high-Ti mare basalts. Finally, we produce a ge- ological map and propose the geologic evolution of the exploration region. We also suggest several rover traverses to explore interesting targets and maximize the potential scientific output.

嫦娥三号巡视器的惯导与视觉组合定姿定位

针对"嫦娥三号"的"玉兔号"巡视器在月面未知环境中避障与安全行进的要求,分析和阐述了"玉兔号"巡视器在地面遥操作中心的控制下利用惯导和视觉组合进行月面导航与精确定位的实现方法,并结合现有的导航定位研究对"玉兔号"巡视器导航与定位的工程创新性进行了总结,阐明了惯导定位和视觉定位技术在"玉兔号"巡视器月面探测过程中的工程应用特点。最后,通过"玉兔号"巡视器着月点的精确定位实验,验证惯导和视觉相结合的定位方法的有效性,定位精度近似达到总行驶里程的1%,这对"玉兔号"巡视器开展月面探索和准确抵达科学目标位置具有重要作用。